


White Rose

by torakowalski



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-06
Updated: 2005-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:55:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There would be a single white rose waiting by the stargate, a sign of his presence, one only she understood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [](http://janne-d.livejournal.com/profile)[**janne_d**](http://janne-d.livejournal.com/) for sorting this out for me!

Sometimes, perhaps twice a month, he would follow them off-world. Followed was the wrong word, for he always arrived first. There would be a single white rose waiting by the stargate, a sign of his presence, one only she understood. She didn’t know how he always knew where they would be, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind.

She hadn’t intended to choose him for a mate. When she had first encountered the Atlanteans, she had barely noticed the eager young Lieutenant trailing behind his superior officers. She had been sure the then-Major Sheppard would be the one for her. But as advantageous as the match would be, she found she didn’t want him. It would have been wrong to use his obvious attraction to her fighter’s body to force a match she didn’t really want. Besides it was clear how much Dr McKay did want the Major; she could not rob him of the chance.

There was no white rose awaiting them when they arrived on PH1 L50 and she experienced a surge of mingled relief and disappointment, unsure which emotion was strongest.

It was a two-day walk to the settlement, but Dr Weir had been unwilling to let them take one of the Puddlejumpers, which were needed more urgently by other teams. So Teyla and the two remaining members of her team walked until the sun went down – or more honestly, until about half an hour before the sun was due to go down, when Dr McKay’s protests morphed from grumbling for grumbling’s sake to actual difficulties keeping up. Teyla had gradually learned to distinguish the two, and so, obviously, had Colonel Sheppard.

They settled in for the night. Teyla opted for third watch, and crawled into her tent leaving the Colonel and Dr McKay talking quietly by the fire embers. She pulled off her jacket and dropped it on the sleeping bag. Her fingers went to the clasp of her blouse, then stilled as she blinked through the semi-darkness.

A single white rose sat on her pillow.

She looked around quickly, half expecting him to be waiting in the shadowed corners of her tent. Obviously though, he was not that much of a fool. She felt a breeze ruffle her skin and, investigating, found a second flap at the back of her tent, one that had not been there before.

Without a backward glance, she crawled through the flap and hurried softly through the long grass behind their camp. It was easy to pick up his trail, as he’d obviously intended, and before ten minutes had passed she heard a rustling on her left and a hand landed on her arm, pulling her into a small copse.

“Aiden,” she breathed, ending up gasping it into his mouth when he pulled her immediately into a hungry kiss, fingers gripping her upper arms bruisingly tight.

She remembered their first time. Before. Before the Wraith, when he was a happy, enthusiastic boy with a platonic crush on his CO. When he would hold her in the dark after they made love and tell her stories of his childhood. She remembered how anxious and gentle he’d been. How his hands had shook with excitement and nerves. How desperate he’d been to appear confident. How she’d had to take control because he was so afraid of hurting her.

This, what they had now, was nothing like that. He had confidence now. Artificial, misplaced confidence in his body. In what the Wraith enzyme enabled him to do. To be. He fulfilled her needs, but he left her heart raw and achingly empty.

He pushed her back into the tree-trunk, hands scrabbling at her clothes, growling in frustration when they wouldn’t surrender easily. Afraid he would rip them – and how would she explain that? – she urged him away wordlessly, and quickly undressed herself, leaving only her panties on. She could not bring herself to wear the breast-support the Atlantean women favoured, but the small, lacy briefs had been a revelation.

This time, Aiden’s growl had a thoroughly different quality, one which made her pulse increase and her body flush. His mouth latched back onto hers, devouring her hungrily, biting and sucking at her lips and tongue, leaving them bruised and tingling, while his hands, strong and warm, slid down her sides, stroking along her ribs, over her hips, down her thighs and back up. She was trembling with need by the time his fingers brushed between her legs, and she gasped, arching into the touch.

He laughed and it was so close to his old, familiar laugh that she let herself close her eyes and pretend.

He turned around her, gently, one hand spreading on her stomach, the other dipping below her waistband. She moaned, and spread her legs wider, nearly crying with relief when his thick fingers finally found the sensitive place between her legs, rubbing lightly, almost enough, but not quite.

“Please,” she gasped, her pleas melting into a sigh as he pressed hard and faster, making her belly fill with fire and cold flames lick up the backs of her legs. She pitched forward, catching herself on the thick trunk as her climax ripped her apart.

He kissed her spine as he lowered her to the ground and dropped to his knees beside her. She turned so her back was against the tree and spread her legs, watching as he unbuttoned his pants before lifting her hips onto his lap and entering her easily. She reached back and wrapped her arms around the tree-trunk, bracing against it as he thrust hard, sucking on her breasts, biting her neck – not hard, never hard enough that Dr Beckett would need to ask any questions.

He collapsed against her after his climax, arms tight around her waist, breath harsh and irregular where his face was pressed between her breasts. She stroked his hair, talked to him, and again pretended things were normal, that they were on Atlantis. That he remembered loving her, not just the imprint of the emotion, which made him seek her out time and again.

After too short a time, he helped her back into her clothes. All her clothes, except her panties, which she knew he had already pocketed. Just once, back on Atlantis, he had asked if he could keep a pair. He’d been flushed and embarrassed and she’d laughed at him and told him to help himself. Now, he no longer asked. He took them each time as if it were a right. She didn’t know what he did with them, but she couldn’t help liking the sensual connection.

He kissed her one last time, fingers tracing her face then disappeared. She didn’t try to find him among the shadows.

When Teyla returned to her tent, she poked her head out of the front flap to check she had not been missed. It was still Colonel Sheppard’s watch and she was startled that so little time had elapsed. Despite having his own tent, Dr McKay was asleep by the fire; lying on his side, face close to Colonel Sheppard’s outstretched thigh. The Colonel was absently petting his hair.

Teyla felt her eyes well with tears for a moment, before she ruthlessly suppressed the emotion. These two had to hide their relationship, just as she and Aiden did. But it was different for Sheppard and McKay. They were constrained by the rules of Colonel Sheppard’s military, but they wanted people to know. Teyla knew that. If it were possible, they would be happy for everyone to know.

In that they were different.

She did not want anyone to know about her and Aiden. Sometimes she wished they had announced their relationship before the Wraith came, before everything changed. But keeping the secret had been thrilling, invigorating. They had thought they had all the time in the world, that they could take their time. Come out when they were ready. Yes, they knew the Wraith were coming, but they were the heroes, they would survive. And then, in the midst of the celebrations they would creep off to his room and make love for the rest of the night.

They had never talked about it, but Teyla knew they had both had the same thoughts. Now though, it was too late for that. It was too late for them, although they still continued. No one could ever know. She was betraying the Atlanteans with her actions, betraying herself, betraying what they’d once had. She should end their liaisons, stop going to him.

She knew she never would.  



End file.
